Free The Fence My Father Built by Linda S. Clare Page B

one my daughter had designed herself. “Bet you and Rhonda Gaye can create a winner,” Lutie said.
    Nova stared ahead and poked at the food with her fork.
    “You might make some new friends.” I could hear the wheedling tone in my voice. “Maybe Rhonda is into designing clothes too.” Nova groaned, and I let the matter drop.
    But I decided it wasn’t worth waiting to catch Aunt Lutie alone before asking about Linc again. After all, she’d just saidNova was plenty old enough for grown-up things. Tiny and Tru would be home again soon, and I needed some answers to questions like why Linc Jackson would bully my father over water in a measly creek? What Linc would need the creek for anyway, except to slake the thirst of a few stray cows? Whether Linc was really King of Murkee?
    I laid my hand gently on Lutie's arm. “I need to know what's going on with Linc,” I said. Nova looked up briefly and then resumed grazing. “You said all the trouble is over water, right?
    Lutie nodded. “Water rights, sure.”
    “But why? Everyone I’ve met so far, including Linc, seems so neighborly.” I grabbed a basket of paper napkins and began folding them.
    “We thought so, too, until a year ago. That's when Linc first asked your daddy to sell. Linc's property doesn’t butt up against the creek, but he didn’t want a slough like Doc Rubin. Joseph tried to convince Linc, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
    “That creek isn’t exactly the Columbia River,” I said. “What's the big deal?”
    Lutie rose and grabbed a sponge, wiping counters as she spoke. “It's a year-round creek. Out here water's everything. Anyway, Linc waved a paper in our faces—real official-looking document. Claims that creek belongs to him because of his great-granddad.”
    “So why would he want to sue us?”
    Nova stopped chewing and took a sip of her iced tea. “Maybe he's an evil corporate developer,” my daughter said. “Or an alien, breeding little aliens in the creek.” She smirked.
    “That's enough of that,” I said.
    Lutie held up her sponge. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it, kiddo? But there’ve been these rumors—”
    “See?” Nova said. “I say let him have the creek. The water stinks.” She sniffed her tea and made a face.
    “What rumors?” I controlled the urge to scold Nova.
    “Just hearsay,” Lutie said. “Linc Jackson has kept a lot of families from going under around here.” She donned a pair of yellow rubber gloves and filled the double sink with suds and rinse water. “But some say he's bent on putting stick houses all over and some kind of fancy golf course too.”
    The Tabernacle Ladies had said Linc owned everything in town but the church. “How’d Linc come to own most of Murkee?” I asked.
    Lutie clanked dishes around in the sink. “This was Linc's great-granddaddy's town. Ulysses McMurphy bought it in the 1880s for around a thousand dollars, or so the story goes,” Lutie said. She looked at Nova. “Back then a thousand dollars went a lot farther than it would today.”
    I grabbed two flour sack towels and handed one to Nova. She pushed back her chair loudly.
    “Hold it,” I said. “I need to keep this straight. Linc's King of Murkee, right?”
    “You got it.”
    “He wanted my father to sell this place, which includes that creek out there.” I pointed in the general direction of the stream.
    “Right.”
    “Linc claims to have rights to that water. What? From some old document he dug up that says he wasn’t gone five years, only four years and some odd months?”
    “As the Lord is my witness.”
    “I’m confused,” I said. “Which is more important to Linc— the land or the water rights?”
    “To hear Linc tell it, our water rights are what he's really after. Something to do with prior appropriation. Well, anyway,first come-first served. Even though Ulysses was the original owner, your daddy bought this place fair and square.”
    “So how could Linc sue us, if it's our land?” I opened a